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the light shining from her office, pretending to read the label that she’d long since memorized. “They say the loss of sight is temporary, and they seem to be right about stopping ‘even the most aggressive assailant’, so I wouldn’t worry.” She paused about five feet from the growling, mewling form curled in a fetal ball before her. “This is the riot-control-rated version the police use, so I could have hit you from about twenty feet away. You should probably remember that from now on.” She watched his gloved hands clutching at his face inside the hood. “Yeah. It’ll be about thirty minutes before you stop wanting to rip your own eyes out. It’ll seem longer.”
    She walked toward the front of the Jeep, tucking her things away. “I was going to hit you a couple times with the baton, but I think it’s important for you to remember that I didn’t have to.” She opened the door to the vehicle. “Leave. Me. Alone.”
    Calliope climbed into her Jeep and backed into the street, leaving the stranger lying on the pavement behind her.

    Traffic had broken up somewhat by the time Calliope made it to the highway and headed back to her house. The difficulties she’d had during the drive over now made sense. What didn’t was the fact that she’d forgotten the date, one of her favorite times of year. She wasn’t really in the mood to go out, but as she pulled into her driveway and parked, she realized she wanted to spend all night alone and indoors even less; the thought of potential trick-or-treaters made her grimace. She sat in the Jeep, staring at the front door of her house for over a minute.
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    â€œHey—”
    She walked out of the kitchen. “Pack your things. I’ve got to go. I’m late.”
    Calliope’s jaw firmed and her lips drew together. “All right,” she muttered as she opened the door and climbed out. “Let’s get a costume.”

    It had been two years.
    The wall of sound vibrated in Calliope’s chest like an ultrasound turned up too high. She’d debated her outfit for over an hour, and it was well into the evening before she’d gotten to the club. The bouncer at the door looked her over, already moving aside the rope on the doorway. “You some kind of gangster?” he asked, looking at the gray, tailored suit she’d bought for rare court appearances on behalf of White Investigations, mismatched with a broad, striped tie of the cheapest polyester and topped with a broad-brimmed fedora.
    â€œI’m Sam Spade, baby,” she replied, walking into the club.
    The music vibrated up through the ground even outside the building. Inside, it was a physical object that pulled at different portions of her body like an animal that was mildly curious about how you would taste. A member of the staff was handing out earplugs just inside the entrance. Calliope had put in her own pair as she’d parked the Jeep.
    Looking over the dance floor and catwalk-like levels that surrounded it, Calliope realized that she’d forgotten what Halloween could be like. The stage provided an anchor point at one end of the lowest level, a heaving mass of costumed dancers surrounding it. Angels, devils, vampires, ghouls, teddy bears, prostitutes, flappers, Egyptian queens, cheerleaders, and at least three Valkyries surged across the dance floor or leaned over railings on the levels above. Calliope felt the familiar buzz of sound and people merge into a sort of electric frisson that she always got in places like this. It was one thing she missed from what she thought of now as the “old days”, something that she’d avoided for the last two years.
    The band’s set was finishing up when Calliope arrived. She was both relieved and unaccountably nervous when she realized that the burly staffer blocking the backstage door was familiar.
    â€œToby, hi,”